How Charlie Hebdo Became A Top Terrorist Target

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In February 2006, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a series of 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that had been featured in the Nordic daily Jyllands-Posten the previous year. The Danish publication triggered anti-Danish protests across the Muslim world. It was the start of the story that would ultimately lead the magazine to become a prime terrorist target.

Depictions of Muhammad are strictly taboo in Islam. The French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) and the Grand Mosques of Paris and Lyon had unsuccessfully attempted to sue Charlie Hebdo to prevent publication of the images on the grounds that they were offensive to France's Muslim community.

Like all totalitarian ideologies, Islamism is nurtured by fear and frustration ... Islamism is a reactionary ideology that kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.

By publicly denouncing Islamism, the magazine became a target of threats, forcing some employees to be placed under police protection. But the attempt at intimidation failed. In fact, it had the opposite effect, emboldening the magazine's staff.

In 2011, the magazine named the Prophet Muhammad as its "editor-in-chief." The cover once again carried a cartoon depicting his making a glib remark.

Stephane Charbonnier, the magazine's editor-in-chief, responded as robustly as ever.

He said: "If we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism, that is annoying."

Charbonnier set out to publish the most controversial editions yet. First came an issue with the cover showing a man dressed in traditional Muslim garb passionately kissing a Charlie Hebdo cartoonist.

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It was then followed by a cover showing a Muslim man in a wheelchair pushed by an Orthodox Jew under the title "Untouchables 2," an imaginary sequel to a recently released French film. The pair are saying (rough translation) "You must not mock us!"

Yet Charlie Hebdo was not done. In 2013 the magazine went further still, publishing what it called a "halal" comic book on the life of the Prophet Mohammad. The book was created with the help of an Islamic Franco-Tunisian sociologist, and Charbonnier claimed, somewhat implausibly given his experiences, that there was no reason why anyone would take offense.

Even those who have defended the magazine's right to publish have acknowledged the articles have been crass. But Charbonnier told Al Jazeera in a 2012 interview that his argument had always been that free speech must be upheld and could not be bounded by what would and would not cause offense.

On Wednesday, the Charlie Hebdo story took a gruesome turn, as two gunmen burst into its offices and shot dead at least 12 people. According to Sky News, they shouted "we have avenged the prophet!"